29 April 2011

HOS Android App

UPDATE: Our Android beta testers really proved themselves this week as we discovered incompatibities with certain models of Android phones like the HTC Eris. And we found one tester with a "jailbroken" phone where the app just didn't work at all. That's where we draw the line, folks: we really can't support "rooted" or jailbroken phones. Look for the finished app early next week.

Now, y'all been very patient about this, and we appreciate that.

Turns out that even when you have a finished iPhone app to model the design, building an Android app is different enough that you wind up doing 90% of the work over again. So naturally, it takes longer than you'd like, but we wanted to get it right. Thanks to our ace programmers PAUL YAGO and JOHN ZORKO, who burned the traditional midnight oil to make it happen.

The app has been in the hands of our beta testers for a week, and we've been discovering and fixing the "device-related" bugs, where it works on one model of phone, but not another. As of today we're pretty much past this, and just waiting for the last few reports to come in to confirm that everything is working as intended. We even managed to make a few improvements here and there.

If all goes well, we'll make the app available in the Android Marketplace next week. We'll announce it here in our blog, on our home page, and via email if you contacted us about the app in the past. GO ANDROID!

We have one intermediate step before that, which is to expand to multiple sub-genre-specific "radio channels" in addition to the existing All Archive Channel.

After that update is released for both iPhone and Android, we will start work on a full-featured version of the service for all the mobile platforms we support. The iPad (and AndroPad) version of this will get the special attention it deserves for the larger screen.

GLENN: The Android app feature set is identical to the iPhone app. As soon as we release it we will start work on our next generation mobile apps, which will be less limited.

They will include multiple "radio channels" separated into our major sub-genres, which will give a lot more choice. We're also aiming to include access to personal favorites and personal playlists in the next-gen app.

By the numbers, there are many more BlackBerry users than Windows Phone 7 at the moment, and even with that a company our size simply cannot afford to develop separate apps for every mobile platform out there.

So the solution we're pursuing is a "mobilized" version of our web site, which will work on any mobile platform that supports Flash streams. In fact, if your phone supports Flash, you can (with some difficulty) use our main web site in your mobile browser right now.
:: SH

I keep seeing references to "sub-genre specific radio channels" for future mobile app releases, but is this going to be available to us old-fashioned, unhip folks who are still accessing HoS through a web browser on a PC? I would really love to see this feature, it would be great to just point the dial at "Indian" or "Electronic Space" or whatever and be served a stream automatically versus creating dozens of playlists...

The plan is exactly as you would wish: we will introduce the multiple sub-genre channels in the Flash app on the web at the same time we do them in the mobile apps. It's a complicated update and we're already working on it.
:: SH

No worries, Trixie. We're doing a 'soft' launch because some people have reported it taking up to 5 minutes to do the initial installation of the app. (After that it loads fast and works great.) we'll make a full announcement next week. :: SH